second re-works of poems

last rush of summer sun 'fore autumn's blast
i sit beneath the world where tractors pass

this is slow down town - i (try to) spoon my soup dead slow
the hills roll dead slowly back - where rivers slowly flow

introduction

some call it gorse (or whin)
the sense of it from years ago was coconut

but now that's gone before i came

questioning the questioner

for two weeks near enough i've asked this land
the questions that has always irked its soul

so tell me of your troubles then
what ails you?
how have the visions been since 98?

the answers came straight enough like syrup from a jar

and now in attical i walk into a peace
that's loud enough to shatter bullish bones

i fall asleep the door is barred to any other
than my weary dreams

and on my waking up that could have been
like any other opening of the eyes -
i have no reference point

where i am
when i am
and why
and christ it hurt

blackberry picking in the mournes

one

along the road the filled out blackberries
are ready with their blood
i will not break their skin
it is a promise that at least my fingers make

i'll take instead their kindness to the tongue
feel the shapes of building blocks
that make them up

each taste is different
one tart
one sour as pus
one bland
one perfect holy sweet
i pick at each until a mile or so of coming to the fence


two

the gate seems fixed
but one leg
two leg
(my boot gets tethered by a hook -
i laugh and shake it off)

i'm over
the cold rocks are
brothers now to heave me up
grass shoves wet and clinging to my tread
(in every gap I take a memory)
i carry on - until a levelness
where i can breathe my sunday in
- sheep shit
- salt water far ahead
- the mountains of mourne


three

so bury me
(don't wait for me to die)
not in one place where other dead can gawp
their toothless heads at me

split my soul in two - one half in cushendall
that sits upon the east
the other side will lie below the green-ness
where i stand
let the roots of gorse
come lay their roots on me

i will sleep in bliss
that way


photographs of lake spelga

watching the sheen - there is no bird life - yet
each ripple's enough to make all action such a flight
the gaps seem like lost consonants (short waves)
there was a drowning here - now just me with my photograph

she clicks me with the dam - just catching light
the wooden shack's dilapidated (stock
still) perched as i am by the crisp black edge
the focus of this photograph will be my jacket's red

glow and the starkness of this place
she drives me further back to battle with the mournes
drawn towards the mist - it takes me long enough
i love the mountain's kiss upon my face
it has been photographed - though slieve muck
pushed me back before i passed

climbing slieve muck

i focus up and ever up
though mountains seem to have no spire
just ever rolling waves of carry on

and up and ever up

each rock lies like some lazy piece of brie

and up and ever up

i stop to see the altered angle of the slope
then race towards the mist that falls the other way

i am ever up

sheep with blood red backs
stop - move on
move on then stop
make umpteen steps

and up
and up

the ridge fills blind with cappuccino froth
its hand has spread its fatness round slieve muck's neck

i'm up
and up
and ever up
before my shoes were wet with boggy grass
now they traverse the almost vertical
where air collides with air
and more
and more
the same

and when i'm slipping
clasping
driving on
the stuff is green
but when i'm looking back

the mountain's skin is yawning brown
not muddy stuff just brown
how things that change when travelling on the up

by holywood

where sea forces coast into dark angles
i walk onto the wall
that strikes into the water

(this is my time)
ten minutes with the rocks and wanderings of birds
and passing by of aeroplanes
that skirt the earth too close

(this is my time)

and where the shingle rests so does the man o'war i find
i tip it to the water's edge - my lazy foot's a spoon
for such a beast

(this is my time)

though never quite relaxed
my eyes suck in the wide expanse
of green and black and blue and grey

(my time)

i capture it with hasty camera click
move on instead of standing
(let whispers of the world soak deep)

haiku to derry's walls

so what goes around
cannot come around because
it's had its gates locked

extinction of derry's tyger

derry derry turning white
up the hills (apartments - white)
marks and spencer and McDonald's
what's gone in belfast
now been followed

(note - I'm going to leave this open to bloggers to suggest appropriate endings to the poem - using the same style and meter as Blake's The Tyger)

st columb's

flags then - faded out and hanging in
it is with silence by my side i sit
and target out some words to find a prayer
cold woodwork seals the end of pews - i dare
not ask questions like
which side are you on?

hymn book - open out at psalms
though i'll let the others live that they may live
across the backs of pews
columb throws a sift of coloured glass like
offering gifts of waking up

prayer mats are empty of shuffling knees
and in the back - mr washington dc walks in like
rolling thunder with deep bass voice

the woman keeps the chat along
he answers questions
and then they find the volume pitch
that satisfies st columb's ears

how strange waking churches

for the centre at omagh

glass (though seeming fragile)
is built for seeing through
is like the letter o (in omagh)
that turns around like time
and strong enough to brace
this bag of truth

the river bed is fed by august rain
but this glass world's of sterner block
hope's calling of the towered dream

is mortared in the grain and solid rock

we are small here
we watch the traffic cutting
at the leash

an ulsterbus smooths round
as if it's always done
whispers on its wheels

omagh blood and omagh sand
omagh sand and blood

one pumps around the veins
one keeps the vision up